British Columbians say that they love local food. Yet, governments, academics, and funders don’t have a clear account of how much of the food produced in BC is consumed in-province.

That’s one of the key findings of REFBC’s latest report, Growing Progress: Taking a snapshot of local and sustainable food systems in BC.

You can’t change what you can’t measure. That’s the premise behind REFBC’s series of “BC Snapshot” reports, which introduce a framework and indicators for tracking BC progress towards sustainability goals.

Growing Progress, the third in this series, introduces a measurement framework to assess the health of BC’s farmland and food systems: one ambitious goal, two desired impacts, and 11 impact measures. Some of the measures we looked at include public attitudes towards farmland protection, hectares of land used for food production, agricultural GHG emissions, and the average of age of farm operators.

One of our biggest challenges was finding data to gauge food self-reliance – or, how much of the food eaten in BC is produced here. There is data available on the volume of food produced in BC and the volume consumed, but no figures linking the two data sets. Without this information, we can only guess at how much of our food needs can be met with food that’s grown, raised, and processed in BC.

The report also identifies gaps in data availability and makes recommendations to improve data quality and consistency. Recommendations include:

• Expanding the Agricultural Land Use Inventory program to cover all regions of BC
• Publishing annual data on inclusions, exclusions, and net changes to land classification in the Agricultural Land Reserve
• Developing an input-output model to better understand the potential for food self-reliance
• Collecting and publishing data on Environmental Farm Plans
• Conducting regular public opinion surveys on local and sustainable food systems

Growing Progress was commissioned by the Real Estate Foundation of BC as part of its BC Snapshot series. The report was prepared by Brent Mansfield and Andrew Stegemann, in consultation with food policy experts.

Two other BC Snapshot reports – Murky Waters (water) and In Search of the Good Life (built environment) – were released in recent months.

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Downloads:

• Growing Progress: Taking a snapshot of local and sustainable food systems in BC
• Media Release